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U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Education, Safe
and Drug-Free Schools Program.

Issue/Question:Has anyone ever been successfully prosecuted in the United States for sending racist threats via e-mail?

Suggested Response:

There is legal precedent for such a prosecution. In 1998, a former student was sentenced to one year in prison for sending e-mail death threats to 60 Asian American students at the University of California, Irvine. His e-mail was signed "Asian hater" and threatened that he would "make it my life career [sic] to find and kill everyone one [sic] of you personally." That same year, another California man pled guilty to Federal civil rights charges after he sent racist e-mail threats to dozens of Latinos throughout the country.